| "1 + 1 = Women's power": 97 Rengo Central Women's Meeting held on 24-25 October 1997 |
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Rengo held the 97 Rengo Central Women's Meeting on 24-25 October 1997 on the theme of "regulating working hours for both men and women". The Meeting discussed the society with the joint participation of both men and women with about 1,200 participants 30% of which were men. |
| President Washio opened the Meeting by stating: "We should not forget that correcting the social distortion and gap will lead to the industrial/economic development. Rengo is aiming at establishing the society with the greatest importance on human and solidarity based on the principle of justice, fairness, equality and participation." |
| Rengo already made a demand that overtime should be annually limited to 360 hours until April 1999 when the revised equal employment law becomes in force. Stressing this point, Assistant General Secretary Ms. Kumasaki appealed to the participants: "Now is the time to take an action for the equal opportunity to firmly come into our hands." She also emphasized that it was essential to clarify the responsibility of employers in establishing the system of motherhood protection and childcare and to ensure that such a provision is included in a collective agreement at all workplace. Ms. Kumasaki, moreover, called for the cooperation of the affiliates to raise the women's participation rate in executive bodies to 15% by the year of 2000 and to review the stereotyped role of men and women in the view of actualizing the equal participation policy. She concluded her address by proposing the international cooperation in this area and a slogan "1 + 1 = Women' power." Then, the participants were divided into 13 working committees to discuss specific topics and some Committees lasted for more than three hours. In particular, the abolition of the women protection provision raised the attention of the participants who had a negative feeling about the future of working women. |
| Seven foreign participants also attended the Meeting from New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, Indian National Trade Union Congress and Federation of Korean Trade Union Confederation. |
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